English

Abstract

BACKGROUND Communication plays a crucial role in the present era of medical litigations and hospital attacks. A good doctor has to be a good communicator. 80 % of medical errors are due to communication failure as reported in a study. The need for improving the medical communication skills of health professionals is getting recognized. The use of structured programme of effective and formal communication skills training is the need of the hour. In order to improve communication skills, Medical council of India (MCI) has launched the ATECOM (attitude, ethics and communication) module in the MBBS curriculum from 2019. The purpose of this study was to assess the attitude of medical students towards learning communication skills. METHODS A total of 447 students from 7 batches were enrolled in the study. All students were asked to fill up the communication skills attitude scale (CSAS) questionnaire which consists of 13 positive attitude questions and 13 negative attitude questions which was scored in Likert’s scale. The data was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). RESULTS There were a total of 447 students, of which 128 were males and 319 were females. The mean total score for positive attitude was 54.19 (SD - 5.99) and the mean score for negative attitude was 33.42 (SD - 5.27). The mean positive attitude score was more for females (54.61; SD - 5.82) than males (53.15; SD - 6.28) and the difference was statistically significant. The female students had a lesser mean negative attitude score compared to males. Batch wise analysis was done using analysis of variance (ANOVA). The P value for total positive score between batches was 0.001 and for total negative score was 0.28. CONCLUSION The study showed an overall positive attitude to learning communication skills with girls showing a more positive attitude and less negative attitude than boys. KEY WORDS Attitude, Communication skills, Medical Students, Competency